


80 Calories

by cuddlepunk



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14919011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlepunk/pseuds/cuddlepunk
Summary: Dan’s feeling a little hungrier than usual before bed. For everyone else, this would be an easily fixed problem.Dan has never been everyone else.





	80 Calories

**Author's Note:**

> GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF BULIMIA AND ANOREXIA. PLEASE BE CAREFUL
> 
> lol this is me projecting!!!! it's me projecting !!!! how I feel!!!!!!!!!
> 
> I wrote it all in one go and didn't edit it its a vent piece lmao even tho its positive and about recovery idk

Dan’s feeling a little hungrier than usual before bed. For everyone else, this would be an easily fixed problem. 

Dan has never been everyone else.

He wouldn’t even count it as hungry. Most people don’t even know what hungry is, so lucky that they think this dull emptiness, perhaps the first brushings of hunger pains is their end of the world. Dan knows what it’s like to curse the world for the strength of the cramps in his stomach, knows it can’t be drowned with any amount of water or tea or, if he’s feeling especially bad, warm broth. Dan’s not hungry, not really. 

There’s a cardboard box of little yogurt containers in the fridge and he doesn’t want to think about how when he stands up straight, he can still barely see the outline of his ribs pressed against his skin. Doesn’t wanna think about how it would only take a month or two of focus for him to get back to his lowest weight. What he’s trying to remember is what he’d tell his younger self: don’t try to go lower, because you’ll spend the rest of your life trying off and on again to get back there. 

He would tell his younger self to eat even though some days it’s so fucking hard. So, he takes a yogurt out. 

80 calories. It’s circled and blown up bigger than anything else on the package in a bubbly purple font. Worn like a badge of honor to the eyes of trendy aunts and fitness gurus, to people in their middle age crisis looking to watch their weight. 

None of them know what 80 calories means. They’ve never eaten a whole carton of these things then felt each of those 80 calorie pouches drop from their mouth back into the toilet. Watched it swirl around like the world’s most fucked up ASMR video. Explore page fitness models next to Dan’s puke, what a sight.

He feels like he needs permission, like he needs Phil, or God, to tell him it’s okay. But that in itself is fucked up, the thought he needs his boyfriend's permission for a fucking midnight snack. It’s frivolous and stupid and it feels like holding the world on his shoulders, it’s so fucking hard sometimes, but he has to just do it himself.

He eats it. It doesn’t feel good to not be hungry anymore. It doesn’t feel like just a yogurt. It feels like summer’s coming up and everyone’s wondering if this is the year he’ll post a swimsuit pic. It feels like he’s 50 pounds over his lowest weight. It feels unfair that one snack is life or death in his mind. He throws the plastic packaging out and rinses the spoon off, placing it on the counter. 

Only secondhand city light falls from the kitchen window so he shuts the curtains before going back to the bedroom. Phil’s sat with his glasses perched on his nose, a blue sheen cast over his face from his laptop. 

He looks up at Dan, taking off his thick frames and placing them on his bedside table. “Time for bed?”

“I guess.”

Dan switches off the light before sliding into those dark grey sheets next to the man who’s supported and loved him for eight years. He can feel his presence close, just a foot away in the all-consuming dark. For someone who talks to a camera about his problems for hours on end, Dan’s not the best at asking for help. But he feels like he’ll die if he doesn’t get Phil’s arms around him. 

So he nuzzles in, mumbling out a sleepy “hold me.”

And Phil does, with an arm thrown over Dan’s waist, little warm breaths against the back of his neck. Dan doesn’t feel insecure about being touched there because he knows Phil doesn’t care. Knows from the hours he’s spent kissing the fullness of his thighs, all across his hips and stomach. He knows nobody cares, not really. Dan himself stopped truly giving a shit a long time ago. His brain feels like it’s wired for a person who is no longer him.

He guides Phil’s hand to his stomach, feels him draw gentle circles there in the softness. It’s not going to fix him. He’s had enough hard nights to know this won’t be the last. But it feels good. 

He ate the yogurt and tomorrow morning he’s going to eat cereal with 2% milk and pretend to care that Phil’s been eating all of it. He’s going to have a panic attack over a granola bar a few weeks from now, probably, and maybe he’ll skip a few meals here and there out of habit if nothing else. But he’ll also sit with the love of his life sharing dishes they cooked together on a balcony overlooking the city. He’ll order a coffee without thinking about it. 

He will get better, even if it doesn’t feel better at first.


End file.
